Voting for GTtalk Featured Tractor of the Month for the month of August 2013 has now officially started. This month's theme is "Favorite Attachment(s).

The winner will be featured on the GTtalk Home Page for the entire month of October and in our Featured Tractor Section for infinity. Our featured tractor winners are also printed in the Lawn & Garden Tractor Magazine so if you are not a subscriber you are missing out.

We have 8 great nominations this month so let the voting begin.

Bolens 1050 - fonz3482

Simplicity 7150 - IlovemyCub

Jacobsen Chief 800 - Tommy Williamson

Snapper 1650 - gtcsreg

John Deere 400 - Littledeere

Bolens Ride-A-Matic - antiquetractors

Bolens 1256 - OldBuzzard

Bush Hog D4-7 - Titus

Before voting please be sure to check out all the entries in the posts below.

I'd like to nominate my Bolens 1050. The tractor has been in the family for @ 20 years. When we 1st bought it the 1050 was in rough shape. My Dad and I went through the whole machine to get it all back in order. From then on it was Our work horse. I would cut grass, rake leaves, and snow blow drive ways for multiple people on my street with the 1050. My parents also purchased land and we would trailer it up there to mow, and cut trails all around the property. After I stopped landscaping and got a "big boy job" my Parents bought a new tractor. The 1050 was then left up at my parents property for grunt work. After many years of use and abuse up at there property the mower deck fell apart. My dad then put it aside and covered it with a tarp. When I purchased a house I asked my Dad for the old 1050. He gave it to me and I did a quick restore on it to get it back in working order.

I've had the machine here at my house for 4 years. It has many attachments. It had a snowblower, chains, weights, loaded atv tires, and cab for winter time fun. For summer it had the tiller to make up my garden, and a home made heavy duty yard cart for moving just about anything. I have also purchased a good mower deck that I will restore and use on the 1050. After all those years of abuse, the 1050 is now semi- retired. Its living the easy life compared to its previous years of use and someday when I have kids(hopefully a boy) I will totally restore it to teach my kids how its done, just like my Dad and I did @ 20 years ago. Enjoy the pictures everyone!! Sorry for some reason a few are small, and its too late to retake them seeing as we are fresh out of the white stuff here in Eden N.Y.

Attached Thumbnails

Edited by fonz3482, July 07, 2013 - 06:53 AM.

Bolens 1000, olcowhand, Texas Deere and Horse and 8 others have said thanks

I would like to nominate my 1981 Simplicity 7150. I bought this tractor for $100 in a back yard with weeds and tress growing into it. It was a mess! It came with a LOT of implements and all the books and manuals!. (Plow, snowplow, grader blade, rototiller, cultivator, wagon and disk) My favorite out of all of them was the rototiller because without it I would have never had my garden. (Missing some of the 3 point hitch). But anyway, I had to put a new carb on her because the original carb was destroyed! So, luckily I had another carb, I threw her together to she what she did. She ran alright, but had to fix the electric lift on her. After I re-built it, she still had problems. She would always stall, me and my dad thought the wiring was bad. But, it turned out it was just a voltage regulator. So, I re-placed that and she ran soo well ever since. So, a few months later, I decided to throw the rototiller on and see what the ole girl could do.

She did well!

I would really like if she won! She's a hard working tractor and has been through a lot! She ain't the prettiest looking thing, but she's a great working thing! Oh, I'm also the 3rd owner of her. I have also done some things here and there to make her look better. I swapped out the sterring wheel because the old one was junk!

I also did a tire swap

Overall, she looks great!

Edited by IlovemyCub, July 08, 2013 - 10:34 AM.

Texas Deere and Horse, gopher, Littledeere and 8 others have said thanks

I would like to nominate my 1966 Jacobsen Chief 800. About 3 weeks ago a local woman was in possession of a Jacobsen Chief 800 and I went to her farm to see about aquiring this tractor. When I first looked at the tractor I was disappointed it was in rough shape and was missing the cover for the Power Drive along with the lever for the Power Drive as well. The mower deck was sitting behind it and it looked fair but not anything to brag about.

So I went home and thought about it for a while. She only wanted $50 for the tractor and mower deck but I'm more of an Allis Chalmers person. So after two weeks I decided I would purchase the Jacobsen. I went back over and loaded the tractor and mower deck but then I noticed back in the corner of the shed was a Jacobsen snow blade for the tractor so I asked the lady about it and she said that I could have that too. When I was loading that, the cover and lever that I needed were laying next to that and she gave me that too. What a nice woman!

I've done a lot of work to the tractor to get it to run well and hopefully that's all because parts are hard to find. My favorite implement is the snow blade. I also like to put on the tire chains that came with the Jacobsen on when I push dirt with it.The combination of the two is golden and get the work done quickly. I like the snow blade the most because it's really simple and easy to hook up when you need it.

olcowhand, esbbent, Texas Deere and Horse and 8 others have said thanks

I'm nominating my Snapper 1650 with implements. My garden tractor story begins with my father and his purchase in 1978 of a new MF 1650 with mower deck, 3 point hitch, snow blade, and 3 point trip bucket loader. Dad used the tractor for several years then moved to town. He sold it as a set at an auction to one of my high school buddie's Mother. She was recently widowed but she still lives out in the country. She still owns and uses this as her mower, etc.

Fast forward to last fall. I retired and we decided to sell our "unneeded" gas guzzling 4WD SUV and replace it with a tractor or garden tractor to keep our one hundred yard plus gravel drive clear of deep snow. Upon starting the search I was kind of looking for an 8N Ford with a rear blade. I wasn't finding anything within our budget. Then I spotted a Snapper 1650 with a converted Craftsman snow blower. It looked ratty but the guy swore mechanically it was real good and he was only sixty miles away. It was quite a bit under budget so I went and got it. As soon as I got it home the memories started flooding back of Dad's MF1650. I was still living at home when he got it and I used it quite a bit myself. Dad passed away from colon cancer a little over five years ago and I still miss him a bunch, especially when I'm working on anything mechanical (he was a Master at it and did it professionally for a while). Last winter I got to use that snow blower a couple of times and it worked great except when I dropped it too low and kept going and broke a master link in the chain.

My mind wondered all winter as to what the Snapper would look like all dolled up in MF 1650 colors. The tires needed replaced due to traction and weather checking so I talked my wife into letting me cosmetically restore it.

I'm almost finished with the restoration and just lack the decals and replacing on small hood support cable when it gets here. It sure makes me think of Dad each time I see it. Now to the question at hand, what is my favorite attachment? My current one is the "half" disc I recovered from a brushy fence row on my place that I reworked to fit the tractor. I will use it when I need to reseed a deer food plot so it won't get used much but it's cool. I hope to soon have a new favorite attachment because I intend to load the tractor up in the pickup and take it to my friend's Mom's house to see if I can talk her into selling my that snow blade from my Dad's tractor. Wouldn't that be a cool way to complete the connection between these two tractors!

Just got the decals on so I thought I'd add a couple more pictures of the tractor with decals applied.

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Edited by olcowhand, July 15, 2013 - 05:02 PM.

olcowhand, esbbent, Texas Deere and Horse and 9 others have said thanks

Well I will put my John Deere 400 up for tractor of the mouth.This tractor has paided it's does and has a lighter work load now.A friend of mine used this 400 to do lawn mowing along with many of the other jobs he takes on.

Lets see we will start from the begining I was surfing Ebay like I do most days and saw a Haban flail mower listed, the seller had no idea what it fit and had it advertised it that way.The model number was 532, it's large {4 foot wide} and was driven from a shaft from the front of a garden tractor.My first thought was that looks like it would fit a 400 so I like many went to work looking for the answer but there did not seem to be any info for this model at hand.So I got my tape out and started checking the best way to measure to get the best results the seller had taken some good pics but I ask him to take some measurements for me and he did so.At this point I was about 90 % sure I knew what the Haban fit.Meanwell guys in all the fourums were trying to find that model number out there somewere and none of us was haveing any luck at that.So now I hold my breath and wait for the end of the auction wondering if I'm correct and if I can buy it.Well as you can see here I did buy it, win I took delivery I only had 2 rough 400's that needed many parts with bad engines.

With the purchase of the Haban I had a friend of mine that was using this 400 as a backup mower for his business he had gone though the engine and had it very mechanically sound, and it had been on loan to another friend until he purchased a replacement.Apon getting the 400 back he had made up his mind to sell it.Well his asking price was more than I could work with.So some time passed and he called me looking for some parts and mentioned he was going to take it to an auction.At this point I know he is going to sell it so I had a newer tractor a LX 255 I had fixed to sell so after a little talking we made the trade.He brought the tractor down to me I had left the Haban on the pallet because it was to heavy to try to install it on a tractor that could not move, so that night I went to the shop like a kid on Christmas day I tugged it in place as it seems to wiegh a ton and it has been on the 400 ever sence.Going to shows here and there not many people around here ever seen a flail mower on a Garden Tractor.

Now I have found Haban for a 140 so now it will have a little brother with it at the shows. This Haban 532 is the only one I have seen other than pics if anyone out in Garden Tractor land knows of another would love to hear about .This is my favorite attachment and that says a lot because some of you that know me, know I have many attachments

Thanks for listening

Littledeere

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Edited by Littledeere, July 12, 2013 - 09:29 PM.

Meangreen, grnspot110, Texas Deere and Horse and 8 others have said thanks

My first two Bolens tractors were an 800 and a G10. I was really wanting a Hydro, and at the 2011 Wellington Oh show I was lusting after an H14 that was for sale there but was priced a bit higher than I was comfortable with,

Now at that time, I was renting a trailer to take my two tractors to the show, and had rented it for a week.

After the show was over, and before the trailer was due back, I found a 1256 on Craigslist. It was priced a bit high as well, but did look really nice in the pics. I called the seller, and made arrangements to take a look at it. While talking to him on the phone, he mentioned that he had some 'other stuff' as well that he would sell for $150.00.

I got there, and unlike is usually the case, the tractor looked as good in person as it did in the pictures. However it did have this weird bracket bolted on the rear end. I agreed to buy it and not needing the bracket, I decided to remove it, which we did.

After we loaded the 1256 on the trailer, I asked about the 'other stuff'. He took me to a different area of the barn and there sat the E-Z Vac. It turned out that the 'weird bracket' was what the engine/blower for the Vac attached to. Not only that, but in the trailer there was the optional Hand Wand for the Vac, and an Ohio Steel made Sleeve Hitch for the tube frames!

Well, another $150.00 quickly changed hands and those items were loaded onto the trailer as well.

Here are a few pics of the 'weird bracket' and the engine/blower mounted, then the 1256/E-Z Vac combo, and a short vid of it in operation. Bear in mind that this was the first time I used it, and the 1256 'throttle lock' wasn't locking like it should. There was some pretty tall grass under the leaves, and right at the beginning it stalls out when the throttle closed. For the rest of the vid I held it open by hand since the 'lock' wouldn't.

Now fast forward to July 2012. A fella in the Wilkes-Barre, PA area advertised a rare front dethatcher unit for the tube frames. I called about it and made arrangements to buy it.

We decided that it would fit in the storage compartment of the motorhome, and off the wife and I went. However, not long after crossing the line into PA, it just quit dead on the freeway. After a tow to a garage in 'the middle of nowhere PA', and camping in the garage's parking lot over the weekend, we ended up renting a car and proceeded on our way to get the dethatcher.

The dethatcher just barely fit into the trunk of a 2012 Maxima, but it DID fit, and we returned home.

Counting the weeks rental of the Maxima, and the repair bill (had to replace the fuel pump) on the motorhome, that dethatcher is the most costly of all my attachments

Anyway here are pics of the combo. It allows me to dethatch, and pick it up all in one pass.

I would like to nominate my D4-7 Bush Hog garden tractor with my ST-320 snow blower. This tractor is my second D4-7 & came to me via craigslist from a nice man who bought it off the original owner. Tractor runs great, turn key start and needed 0 work when I picked her up, which was a 1st for me. Came with the original snowblower, and all of the original manuals!All original, taken care of and a blast to drive! In fact bush hogs were the first manual operating machine I've ever used. I bought this to use as a snowblower in the winter and a mower in the spring, summer, & fall. I am looking forward to getting some snow as I've only used this once and we got about an inch. I plan on owning this one for the rest of my life, and enjoying this machine for years to come.

I would like to nominate my Ford LGT 145 with homemade FEL and rear blade.

thanks!
William

William,

We already closed the nominations and have the voting underway for this month. Keep an eye out for when the nominations start for the next month and also follow the guidelines that are in the first post of the nominations thread.